‘We can’t close churches during one of the greatest challenges facing our world’

29 January 2021

A group of church leaders in Scotland is pursuing a judicial review into the Scottish government’s decision to make meeting for in-person worship services a criminal offence in the highest tiers of the national lockdown.

The closure of churches in Scotland is unprecedented: no attempt has been made to close them since the Stuart kings made it a capital offence to meet for worship and listen to preaching from anything other than the established church, all the way back in the 17th Century.

Here, eleven church leaders in Scotland explain why churches should be allowed to remain open. “In a time of famine, you don’t go and burn a country’s crops; in a storm, you don’t shut down the lighthouses,” says Rev. Dr Rupert Hunt-Taylor.

Pastor Geoffrey de Buin says: “We cannot afford to close churches during what is most certainly one of the greatest challenges that is facing our world.”

Find out more about Church lockdown
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